Gaming News

The time for begging Blizzard is over, for a lot of Hearthstone fans, anyway. Blizzard just launched its Warcraft-themed free-to-play card game into open beta in North America, with other regions rolling out "later this week," which means you'll see a big "Play Free Now" button on the Hearthstone website if you live in the US or Canada.

Hearthstone's open beta rollout was originally promised for a December launch, but it took a little longer for Blizzard to open the gates to the entire PC community. More than a million players were in on the closed beta, and Blizzard is still in the process of balancing the game. The game will roll out in the rest of the world gradually over the next few days.

Playing Hearthstone requires a Battle.net account. If you don't have one yet, make sure you pick one up, to save hassle later.